Lent: New Identity, New Calling

So we're in the season of Lent, like Sam mentioned.

And so Lent is the season leading up to Easter.

And so we're following the lectionary, which is a teaching guide, and it gives us different scriptures each Sunday leading up to Easter.

So this morning we have the 2nd Corinthians passage as well.

We have Luke 15, the Prodigal Son parable, which we talk about a good bit here in this church.

And so we'll be talking about these two different passages.

Now, when I was in the first grade, I took two little rubber bracelets, sort of like these two.

These are actually hair bands that I found in my daughter's bathrooms.

But they look like this.

One was blue and one was uh kind of a navy blue, and and uh I took them to school, and they were kind of do you remember you could do this little trick like this, and this was like super cool, and if it was cool anywhere where you put like you intertwine them and you do that.

And this was cool for girls and boys at the time.

They were rubber, everybody had them, and so I took these two bracelets to school.

And on this particular day, when I took these two bracelets to school, my friend Matthew, he had he had brought$40 to school.

Now we were in the first grade, we were six years old.

Matthew had$40.

I had two junky bracelets that I probably found underneath the couch, and I sold to Matthew these unbelievable bracelets.

He could get nowhere else for the$40.

So at the beginning of the day, started out with Matthew with these$40 and me with the bracelets.

And sometime during recess, I sold, and there was an exchange, right?

So there's an exchange, and now I had$40.

This was as much money as I had ever seen in my entire life.

I was wealthy beyond any means possible.

When I got on the bus, I am showing it to everyone, I'm showing it to Todd and Jimmy and Jason, I'm showing it to all my buddies and the neighborhood because I was I was the savviest businessman that had ever come off of Shannon Way.

I mean, nobody, Jimmy had been selling blowpots for six months, he hadn't seen$40, right?

And I was in first grade, I had$40, and so I'm talking about it, and of course, at some point by the time I get home, it's only about 30 minutes before my sisters mentioned it to my mom.

My mom has now informed me that the$40 will be returned to Matthew tomorrow, and I will get my junkie bracelets back.

But for just a little bit, for just a little bit, what an unbelievable exchange happened.

Right?

And a great exchange, a great exchange can change everything.

Like maybe you've had a great exchange, right?

Like you had a great deal, you found a deal, or you got a deal.

And it can change so much.

Now, at age six with Matthew with this situation, we don't think much about this, right?

We we kind of laugh, we go, Matthew, he's so innocent, he's you know a little naive, he hadn't learned quite like the numbers.

Like for him, he was thinking like one piece of paper for one bracelet, right?

But now let's say this same exchange happened and we were 12.

Now all of a sudden we would all think a little bit differently about this, wouldn't we?

We would think, well, boy, this Matthew, he's pretty needy, right?

Like you go, like, I really hope his mom or dad pulls him aside and say, hey, Matthew, you you don't have to buy your friends, you don't have to buy friendship.

Like, you don't have to do that, right?

Like we would think he's pretty needy.

Now, if we we extend it even further and say we're 50 years old, I have these two junky little bracelets, and Matthew has made it big in some way, and let's say, just for the sake of making this illustration as grand as possible, he he buys off of me my junky little bracelets for$40 million for the sake of the illustration.

Work with me.

Well, now we would say, well, he's not naive.

He's probably not needy.

Because at this point it only becomes like lavish.

Right?

I mean at this point you just go like, what, what?

Like, is that true?

And you're Googling it, you're reading it.

Like, why would somebody, why would somebody do something like that?

That doesn't make any sense.

I can't get my mind around that sort of exchange.

That doesn't even make sense.

That exchange doesn't make sense.

What a lavish act of giving and grace and love.

And it's then, only then, you have to do all that work to get that little first grade story to actually work for us with 2 Corinthians 5.

I had to do a lot of work, I had to get you somewhere, because it's only then can we understand how lavish this exchange is that we read about in 2 Corinthians 5.21.

For our sake, he, God, made him, Jesus, to be sin, who knew no sin.

So that in him, not in us, but in him we might become the righteousness of God.

So the exchange was made, his righteousness, fully righteous, a wealth of righteousness exchanged for our sin.

And that exchange was made.

So all of our sin, we can't quite get it all together, our behaviors that are just pure rebellion and selfishness, and we want to be our own authority, all of that, all the ways that we self-justify with different identity structures, all the ways that we do that in religion, all the ways we do that in the world, all of it, the greed and the anger and the lust, all of it, all of it, has been put upon him.

And his righteousness is given to us.

So we are fully forgiven and we're fully righteous.

If we jump back in, back up at 17, therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.

The old is passed away.

Behold, the new is come, all this is from God.

And I love that, so declarative, so we just know, like, oh, this is a this is God doing this for us and through us, who's through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.

So let's begin by saying this.

Point number one.

We'll begin by saying, you are a soul.

You are a soul, not what you do, have, or can get.

And that's just another way to say there's a part of you that is below the skin, below success or failure.

Deeper, more profound than your relationships on earth, deeper and more profound than anything you achieve, or any applause you get, or the lack thereof.

It's below, it's more profound, the stuff, or the behaviors.

It's what I call, it's the it's the just you.

Like when you go like, this is just me.

Like there's always sometimes we like you finally see yourself as that, and you go, like, oh, the career thing didn't quite build me up like I thought it was going to, or, or the relationship or the family, or you go like, oh, this is just me.

And it's like, yeah, that is.

There's a just you.

And that's your soul.

But what Paul says is he says in verse 17 that in Christ, that's where you're made new.

That you can be new there.

In that true inner self that's the soul.

And then verse 18 says, the old has passed away, so all the old ways that we use religion and try to be good enough and be enough, or in the world, or irreligion, and try to use the world and rebellion to be good enough and experience enough, and then I'll be finally I'll be pleasing to God or pleasing to myself or pleasing to somebody else.

And that old way is passed away.

You don't have to keep doing that.

And we are justified.

That verse 21, where it says his righteousness is given to us, that word is not only righteous, like we are fully right, it actually means that we're we're justified.

So all the justification we're looking for for value or worth or identity, that's what this is.

It's all the righteousness, all the justification as children of God and just as human beings.

And all this is from God.

And we are made new.

We have a new identity.

Now, identity is simply the core of who you are.

This is how you think of yourself.

It's actually, it's how you regard yourself, it's the just you.

The traditional narrative about identity would be that we find identity in our roles in family, community, or tribe.

That would be a very traditional way of how we think about ourselves, how we regard ourselves.

A modern way, a modern narrative of identity would be that we find this same idea of who we are, but it's by what we can produce or what we can achieve.

So I'm a pastor.

One fear I have is that I'll rest too much of my identity in our church.

And I well, if it grows and it's healthy and things are good, and sermons are good, people are happy, and then all of a sudden, my identity will be feel good, I'll feel good about myself, and I'll have an identity structure by our church.

But what if things aren't healthy?

What if it doesn't grow?

What if things aren't good?

What if the sermons just aren't that great?

What if I feel like a failure and all that?

Or equally as scary, it would be what if our church is healthy and it does grow?

Or maybe it's healthy and it doesn't grow, but it's healthy and it's good and things are good.

And it's still not enough.

See, either way it's a trap.

You could play this out in your life.

Either way, it's a trap because it's identity, it's justification by my work.

And all of that's very modern.

So we could react to it and go, I'll go the I'll go the traditional route.

I'll find my identity, I'll find my justification of my soul by my role as mom, dad, husband, wife, friend, son, daughter?

Role in my community, role in my family, role in my tribe, traditional route.

But what if home life gets hard?

What happens when your mom dies?

What happens if your child dies?

What happens when your spouse dies?

What if my wife doesn't soothe my ego like I thought she would?

Which happens a lot?

What if one of my girls' daughters goes off the rails?

What if I'm just not as good at being a dad as I thought I would be?

Well, you see that even the traditional route, as good as this is, or as good as the modern route, but they have limits.

They have limits.

Because it's still justification by work.

But what if identity?

Your soul and who you are, how you come to be justified as a human being and righteous before God, what if that is not by your work and your merit, but it's by a ridiculous exchange that is made.

So this prodigal son story in Luke 15.

This ridiculous exchange happens here.

You remember the story?

There's this family, a dad, wealthy dad, two sons.

The younger son comes to the dad.

You remember he comes to the dad and he says, Hey, I would like my inheritance now, which is a bit uh would be upsetting to the father, but the dad says, Okay, I'll give you your share of the inheritance, and he takes off and he goes to a foreign country, and he just starts to live lavish in his own means, in his own way, pure rebellion, justifying himself by being his own authority, no regard for right and wrong.

He's just gonna do whatever he wants.

And so he's just spending money, he is living it up, and this is just symbolic of how we say to God, like, I'll go my own way, I'll make this happen, I'll do this.

Right?

The boy's just doing what we've all tried to do, like, I'll buy my way into happiness and sufficiency and adequacy.

But eventually what happens is what happens to us.

You realize I can't consume enough.

The money starts to run out, and then the people leave, the friends leave, and eventually he's working like feeding pigs, jealous of their life and their food.

There's nothing left at this point for him.

There's nothing left for him to busy himself out of seeing himself.

And so what's left is just him and his poverty.

Everything's been stripped away.

All the identity structures have been stripped away.

All his rebellion he was using to cover up his need of the father have been stripped away.

He's starving to death, but he remembers his dad.

And he thinks, well, maybe I can go home.

Maybe dad'll still take me back.

So he starts home.

Remember, he starts in on a speech.

He's going, like, okay, I'm gonna get my speech ready because this has got to be about confession and like working my way back in.

Maybe God'll maybe the father, my father will forgive me, but I think I'll probably have to like work my way back into favor or status.

But it doesn't work that way.

It's interesting.

And what it shows us is that it's we are fully forgiven and we're fully righteous all at the same time, which is totally ridiculous.

He gets near and this Middle Eastern father runs toward him, which would be completely undignified right away, showing that the father's taking on the humiliation.

The confessing begins.

I've sinned against you, and it's almost like the father's like, yeah, I got that, I got the confession, or else he wouldn't be coming back.

And the father wraps him up, begins to kiss him, bring the robe, put it on him, bring a ring, put it on him, put sandals on his feet.

We're gonna have a feast for my son is home.

We see the exchange.

And Jesus is telling us that the Heavenly Father lavishly forgives us and lavishly covers us with his righteousness.

So we have a secure identity as his beloved.

Point number two is this your Heavenly Father desires to give you a new identity as justified, righteous, and beloved.

This is who we are as a new creation.

It's our identity.

It's not traditional identity, we'll find some goodness in that in our lives, and it's not modern identity, and we'll find some goodness in that in our lives.

But all both of those have limits.

It's gospel identity, identity in Him, in Jesus.

And at that point, it's objective.

This is objective at this point.

This is declared upon you.

That's what makes it so good, is that it is objective.

It is secured outside of you and it is given to you, and whether you feel it or not, it's true.

But here's here's kind of the problem, not the problem, here's the challenge.

What does this mean?

So it's true, but then what about all the moments in life we go, like, I know it's true, and that's freeing.

That's freeing.

But how do I appropriate that into my life?

Because I don't feel any of that today.

As I'm wrapped up in traditional identity or modern identity or rebellious identity, and I don't feel this objective gospel today.

On Monday, I went to Costco, had a list.

I think I had eight things.

And so I make my way, and I like to sneak into Costco.

I don't know if you do like when you go in, you know, they check the card.

I like to see if I can get in.

Because it gives me the rush I had of when I was like 16 and I was sneaking into things, but like I already know I'm a member, so if I get caught, I'm like, yep, I got a card.

But it gives me that little, so I tried to sneak in, and he caught me, and I was like card, and he's like, I know you old guys who are still trying to live the dream.

And so I do that.

I get in, I get our almond melt, rotisserie chicken.

You had the rotisserie chicken.

I don't know how they're doing that for five dollars.

It's unbelievable.

Rotisserie chicken, slices of cheese.

I'm working my way back down, vanilla extract.

I I get some um Ziploc baggies, I find a like a like a carton of copper tone sunscreen, there's like 18 of them in there, put that in the buggy.

It's probably about a hundred dollars worth of worth of stuff.

And I I get up to the to the register and I I pull out my wallet, I have seventeen dollars cash.

And then you go, well, you know, it's 2019, Russ.

I mean, that shouldn't be a problem.

Here's the problem.

I have a MasterCard, I have an American Express.

Costco only takes Visa.

And I have$17.

So the clerk's looking at me, and she says, Yeah, like, okay, well, do you have a um a debit card?

I'm weird and I only have an ATM card, like, there's no Visa sign on my debit, like this 1990 version of the debit card.

Some of y'all maybe know what this is.

It's called an ATM card, it only works in ATMs.

And is I'm weird and I think people are gonna steal my money.

And so I only have the ATM card.

And she's never seen this before, and I have to explain what this card is, and she's like, Well, mate, let's go to the over to the ATM.

And so we walk over the ATM.

A card didn't work, I think it expired in 1990, apparently.

I hadn't used it in literally a decade, so it doesn't surprise me.

And at this point, I'm actually getting embarrassed.

Like, I when she wasn't looking at me, I looked down at what I was wearing.

Because I was like, does she think I can't afford any of this?

And and I'm like trying to con my way into like 57 copper tone sunscreens.

And I look down and I'm like, I kind of don't look that great either.

Maybe I maybe I am trying to con my way.

And the thing that was so frustrating about all of this is there's money in my account.

I know there was more than a hundred dollars in my account.

I just couldn't, I couldn't, I couldn't get it.

I couldn't I couldn't appropriate it into Costco.

I couldn't appropriate it in right then.

And that's the point, because we all know this feeling.

Like, I know that in the gospel I am fully forgiven and fully righteous, I am his beloved.

I know that.

That is true and it's objective, and that's why I'm free.

I get it, I get it.

But I'm not feeling it right now.

How do I appropriate that objective truth into my life today?

Because this is what Paul does.

Paul carries this objective truth into an empowered effect on our life.

In this passage, he does this.

He says, Because of this objective exchange that's so ridiculous for you, you have a ministry of reconciliation.

You're gonna be a reconciler.

So there's an empowered effect that occurs.

And there's gonna be days where you hear the sinful nature inside of you telling what you deserve and what you can do and what you should do and what you should say, and there's gonna be the voice of shame that says, Oh, yeah, by the way, you're not really that righteous or that deserving or that lovely or that worthy.

And what do we do, what do we do when this happens?

And the answer, I think, at least for me, is what I've learned at this point, is something I never expected.

And this is that you become, and I become a repenting preacher.

Sounds odd.

You wouldn't have guessed it.

I would have never guessed it.

That we joyfully repent.

And we get to joyfully repent because the objective gospel's over us for free.

We're fully forgiven, fully righteous already.

So we get to joyfully repent as many times in the day as you need to.

You got me, there I go again.

Lord, forgive me.

I confess it, help me not to live in that way.

And then you start to preach.

And you've got to become a good preacher for yourself, to yourself.

That you preach that objective gospel over yourself.

Though I may be a sinner, I am a saint.

I am already accepted, I am already valued, I'm already worthy, I'm already righteous, I am already loved.

I do not have to rely on that, I do not have to do that, I do not have to think that, I don't have to go that way.

Even in this, in this moment, I am his beloved.

You become a repenting preacher.

And then you can do something you've never been able to do before.

Or at least if you live in modern identity or traditional identity, because you're really busy in those two different identity structures, you're very busy pretending and performing, justifying yourself.

But in gospel identity, then you can say, Lord, why am I like this?

Why do I keep doing this?

What are you doing?

You're breeding the wealth, the wealth that is already in you.

In Jesus, the wealth that's already in you, that wealth of righteousness and value and love, you are appropriating it into the now, into this moment, this day.

And this passage tells us something happens along the way.

And it's not perfection, it's love.

We get this ministry of reconciliation.

Verses 19 and 20, that is in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them.

Good news.

And entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.

Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us.

We employ you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.

Last point, when you are freely reconciled to God, and reconciled means to be brought back into relationship or to harmonize.

Isn't that a beautiful image to harmonize?

Two people singing together in unison.

It's together, it's one, that you were brought back into that harmonization with God.

When you are freely reconciled, you are freed to be a reconciler.

So you see him or she or they or that family or that thing, and usually you know start off, you're like, oh, I can't believe they think that, or how they do that, and I can't believe they raise their kids like that, or they join that, or they do that, or whatever that is, and oh, she's with him, or he's with and all that, and you you see all that, and usually so quick to go to judgment, like, oh, you know, right?

That's a quick way for identity, right?

Like that we love that, right?

Like we love a quick judgment to make ourselves feel very sure about ourselves.

But what happens in gospel identity is you go, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I know about that.

I sort of, I sort of do that too.

And you don't move toward judgment, you move toward love, you move towards being a reconciler in their life, a voice of truth and a voice of love, trying to move them into being in harmonization with God to know about Jesus.

Because you know, because you know what we're all doing, what we're all learning, and that is that we are we're just beggars.

We're just beggars looking for some bread.

And you found some.

So, my brothers and sisters, may we boast in all of our weakness that we might rest in Jesus.

Let's pray together.

God, thank you for your goodness.

That we are reconciled and we get to be reconcilers.

Thank you, that our identities, our justification, our righteousness is not based on our work.

Thank you, that our forgiveness and absolution is not based in our work, or our worthiness or our loveliness is not based in our work.

Thank you that we have a soul and we are made new because of your love for us, that when we come home, you are already running toward us.

And you are willing to humiliate yourself on the cross to wrap your arms up around us and cover us with your righteousness, and that you don't just forgive us and say, work your way back into the family, but you say, You are fully forgiven, fully righteous.

Your status is secure.

You are my beloved.

Help us to know that more, remember that more.

Help us to become repenting preachers, joyfully repenting and preaching the gospel upon our own souls.

Because you are good.

May our lives honor you and all things in Jesus' name.

Amen.